Need help with survivor

imacountrygirl

I live with my cousin who is a lung cancer survivor or 4 years. I am needing to understand
what she is going through.
She is very depressed and seems to have alot of self pity. She will not get out and do anything. She just wants to sit around and mope.
She is 48 years old. She had part of her lung removed and one rib. Her family lives here in town. We are all at our wits end with her.
She says she can't go to work, that she can't get off morphine and is in daily pain. But then she turns around and says it is phantom pain. We don't understand how that can be.
She goes to a counselor and we don't know what he tells her. She says she can't go out of the house to work but she gladly comes to church on potluck day and she goes to play bridge with the ladies from church. She says she can't do housework but she can move furniture around to her liking. This is all confusing to us. We don't know what is going on in her mind.
She is very verbally abusive to me and her family. She says she has neurological problems from chemo. Is that possible?
She went to her oncologist last week and she is still cancer free. It seems like that would lift her spirits.
She is applying for disability for these problems and she has been denied. All the while she is getting 350. cash benefits and 200 food stamps. Which is not covering the bills so I am carrying her. It is becoming a burden on me.
I feel that if I know what she is going through, I can be more loving and understanding to her. I feel so mean by not giving her the pity she wants. But I feel she should be celebrating life and not wanting all this pity.
Not having cancer myself, do not know what it is all about.
I am sitting here with tears in my eyes because I feel that I am the one being hateful and not her. Please help!
We would like to help her but we don't know how.
Thank you for any help you can give us,
Rhonda

AnnaLeigh

We care so much about our survivors and want to help
Rhonda,

You sound like such a caring, devoted and loving cousin and it is so obvious that you want the best life possible for your relative. To be able to celebrate with her that she has survived and still has many things to be thankful for and look forward to.

Since she is seeing a counselor, contact that person and ask for family counseling. They may want to see you alone first in order to establish some background and fit everyone's needs together. The counselor will not divulge any of your cousin's discussions to you but neither will they pass along what you say to anyone else either.

This will not only give your cousin's counselor a more accurate picture of how to help her but it will also give you a chance to ask questions about what you can contribute in the way of help (should I show pity or does that harm her?). The counselor can also give you a better understanding of the ways survivors cope after their cancer is gone but they still know that their life has been changed in so many aspects. Survivors view life differently than the rest of us.

Please post again to let us know how you are doing. We are here to listen.